An article in the April 25-26 edition of the Wall Street Journal began with the headline “The Ukraine War is Europe’s war now.”

“With Russia determined to continue its four-year invasion until it dominates its neighbor, and President Trump pulling back from Europe and focused on the Middle East,” the article said, “Ukraine finds itself reliant on the traditionally wary EU (European Union) in its war for survival.”

Although some nations and their people see beefed-up EU political and financial support as confirming the main premise of the April article, especially the blunt assessment contained in the headline, the Ukraine situation cries out for a “totality” viewpoint, one with history as the foundation.

If that is accomplished, the “verdict” will be that the Ukraine War cannot just be Europe’s war — that it must be a cooperative effort encompassing other right-thinking nations and people committed to trying to halt the hostilities.

And, up front, there is one main reality that must be accepted. It is that a tyrant’s appetite is insatiable and, beyond that, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a person fitting that description.

Putin isn’t a tyrant — at least not yet — to the extent of Germany’s Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and ’40s, whose aggression was a seed “planted” on behalf of World War II. Historical accounts tell us that Hitler invaded or occupied more than 20 countries, using annexation, military conquest and puppet governments as his tools before his insatiable lust for domination was halted.

Among his “victims” were Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and the Netherlands.

His goal was to overturn the territorial losses imposed on Germany at the end of World War I, and his first step was the reintegration of the coal-rich region Saarland that was separated from Germany at that war’s end and placed under an Anglo-French League of Nations mandate.

Turn the clock ahead to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s so-far-unsuccessful attempt to take total control of it — in large part unsuccessful because of military aid from the United States.

Would Putin be satisfied if he were successful regarding Ukraine? Not likely, and here’s evidence:

Putin wants to reverse post-Soviet Union “retreats” and achieve liberation of what he says are Russia’s historical lands — using military means, if necessary.

His post-Ukraine targets likely could be Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland or nations in Central Asia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on April 23, while on his way into a meeting with European leaders, that “during the war we need everything and everybody; we need the United States.”

Zelenskyy expressed concerns that the United States’ use of so much weaponry in the Middle East might be draining stocks that his nation needs.

This country provides aerial interceptors that Ukraine needs to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. The U.S. also has been providing Ukraine’s military with battlefield intelligence.

Such capabilities Europe and the European Union are unable to replace.

Then there’s this sentence from the Journal’s April 25-26 report:

“Looking to the future, Europeans would rather see Russia tied down in Ukraine than threatening EU borders.”

But nationalist parties in France and Germany are calling for an end to funding for Ukraine, and any new effort for new EU money for Ukraine in 2027 will bump up against a French presidential election.

The past four years haven’t been good for Ukraine. Unfortunately, with a tyrant lurking, the situation in Ukraine and beyond could become much worse.